The Country Director of African Development Bank (AfDB) in Nigeria, Mr Ebrima Faal, has said that the bank will prioritise interventions in Africa’s power sector in the current fiscal year.
Giving this hint during an interaction with journalists at the newly-built Nigeria Country Department Office on Tuesday in Abuja, Faal said “the 2018 programme of the bank is focusing mostly on power sector, we haven’t several solar projects that we are handling together with the world Bank and other partners.
He clarified further: “We are working together in some of these projects in Jigawa, Bauchi and Sokoto states among others. We also anticipate supporting the private sector in developing two large fertiliser plants for both internal and external use.
“There is a world class clinic of medical facilities called Santaclara Clinic located in Lagos, which we hope to finish.We are also working to provide lines of credit on cassava processing and agribusiness; those are the projects the bank will be supporting this year,” Faal added.
The Country Director also disclosed that the Bank was planning to install solar panels on the new Country Office once it is commissioned this Thursday, adding that the essence is to supplement the generation of more power that would allow the Bank to have additional sources to support both the building and the premises.
“We are in the process of installing solar thermal technology as additional source of cooling and lighting the new building and premises. We have already installed environmentally friendly chargers to charge electric cars for those that are using these type of cars.
“Last year was my first year, so when I came to Nigeria, we had already invested 1.6 billion dollars between the project support in the Northeast and some water projects,” he added
He said that the Bank was working closely with Nigeria and ECOWAS to achieve results.
According to him, the Bank maintains a strong partnership with the Federal Government as a shareholder, which has been instrumentally important in the growth of the institution.
He said that Nigeria remained the largest shareholder of the Bank with investment portfolio of over 5.5 billion dollars as at 2017, thereby accounting for 13 per cent of the bank’s total portfolio.
